St. Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Hillcrest Road, Dudley

Pupil Premium

Our Pupil Premium for academic year 2017/18: £66,000

What is Pupil Premium?

Pupil Premium is additional Government funding to raise achievement amongst disadvantaged children. It is to help schools to close the gap between children from low income / disadvantaged families and others.

Pupil Premium is for pupils from Reception to Year 11 who are from low income families and are eligible for Free School Meals. Any child that has been registered for Free School Meals over the past six years is eligible. Any children who are 'Looked After' or whose parents are in the armed forces are included and also attract another source of funding per child per term for the school to use to support.

Barriers to Achievement

Our eligible children face the same barriers to achievement as other children. These barriers include: Parents not being sure of how to help their child with their learning, families not having time to spend on homework or reading due to busy lifestyles, children struggling to concentrate, children having difficulties behaving appropriately, specific learning difficulties, social and emotional needs, domestic problems, low self-esteem and other issues that affect the children’s ability to achieve..

How we intend to spend this year’s allocation

This year we will be using some of pupil premium to provide an additional qualified teacher in our Year 6 class (Mrs MacDonald) who will help to ensure all children eligible for pupil premium receive additional support.

In addition we will also use our funding to provide additional teaching assistants (over and above what would normally be provided) in our Key Stage 1 and 2 classes who will provide dedicated additional support to our pupil premium eligible children every week. This support may be one to one tuition, mentoring, small group support or in-class support. The quality of support will be monitored every week by the Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher.

We follow this approach because we have a proven track record of achieving positive outcomes for children eligible for the pupil premium. Small group support works exceptionally well at St Joseph’s because we are lucky enough to have a team of very skilled teaching assistants.

In recent years children eligible for pupil premium have made much better progress at St Joseph’s than the national average for all schools. We have used the additional support model for a number of years and our results show that it is effective.

Our aim is to give the best possible life chances to all our pupils by providing extra support to enable each child to make the best progress possible.

We have also used pupil premium to provide subsidies for Educational Visits (day trips and residential) so that all pupils can access experience for enrichment and raise aspirations.

How we measure the impact of Pupil Premium

We carefully track the progress of all pupils at St Joseph’s.

The children are tested and/or teacher assessed every term and progress is carefully monitored. If any child is falling behind then rapid interventions are put in place.

Teachers are accountable to the headteacher for the progress of the children in their care. The headteacher and deputy head conduct termly pupil progress meetings with all teachers. They also monitor the provision in the classrooms every half term and scrutinise the pupil’s books every week. This very high level of monitoring enables us to ensure our use of the pupil premium is effective. If we find any provision is not effective then we immediately change what we are doing to ensure all children, including those eligible for the pupil premium, are making good progress.

Date of the next review of school’s Pupil Sremium strategy

We will review this strategy in Summer 2018 ready for the new school year 2018/19.

How we spent our allocation last year

Last year we spent our Pupil Premium on:

Additional teaching assistants in Key Stage 1 and 2.

An additional support teacher in Year 6 all year round.

Providing subsidies for trips and visits so that all children can access these opportunities.

How the way we spent our allocation made a difference to disadvantaged pupils

In 2016/17:

In Key Stage 2 there were 10 disadvantaged pupils in total. In Key Stage 2 progress is measured. Ofsted’s key focus is on progress (achievement) and this is measured between Year 2 and Year 6 assessment outcomes.

Disadvantaged KS2 pupils at St Joseph’s had a progress score of +4.67 in Reading compared to a national other pupils reading progress score of 0.33. This is a positive difference and in the top 8% of schools nationally.

Disadvantaged KS2 pupils at St Joseph’s had a progress score of +6.49 in Writing compared to a national other pupils reading progress score of 0.7. This is a positive difference and in the top 2% of schools nationally.

Disadvantaged KS2 pupils at St Joseph’s had a progress score of +7.23 in Mathematics compared to a national other pupils reading progress score of 0.28. This is a positive difference and in the top 2% of schools nationally.

In Key Stage 1 there were 7 disadvantaged pupils in total. In Key Stage 1 only attainment is measured – not progress.

In Key Stage 1 Disadvantaged children’s reading at the expected standard was 57% compared to a national figure of 79%. This means we were 1 child below the national figure.

In Key Stage 1 Disadvantaged children’s writing at the expected standard was 57% compared to a national figure of 72%. This means we were 1 child below the national figure.

In Key Stage 1 Disadvantaged children’s Mathematics at the expected standard was 57% compared to a national figure of 79%. This means we were 1 child below the national figure.

In Year 1 there were 2 disadvantaged children. 100% of disadvantaged children passed the phonic check compared to a national figure for all pupils of 84%.

In EYFS (reception) there were 4 disadvantaged children in 2016/17. There is no progress measure for EYFS, only attainment of the early learning goal and expected standards in key areas. They did not meet the early learning goal.